[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Miller, Jeremy JMILLER at ci.albany.or.us
Thu Jun 20 00:16:01 UTC 2002


> > Basically, don't use the stepping stones as a club when 
> someone doesn't
> want
> > to step on the next one.  Skip over it, and be clear that 
> you are skipping
> > over it.  They may change their mind later, once they 
> figure out where you
> > are going.  Suprisingly, they often do.  They at least get 
> a good idea of
> > where you are coming from and why, even if they decide to 
> disagree in the
> > end.
> 
> Well I guess that's where being able to design and build 
> houses that stand
> over time has made me more acutely aware of the value of a 
> good foundation,
> and I don't care to set myself up for a fall by allowing you 
> or anyone else
> to cause me to build an outcome-based house of cards built on 
> a foundation
> of sand metaphorically speaking.


> You do realize that I am arguing with people that have three 
> or more answers
> to two plus two?

I just recently did, but I saw them clarified that they are referring to the
fact that there are more ways to represent numbers than our common-use base
10 system.

3/4 is the same thing as 0.75, though they are written totally different
ways and share not a single digit in common.  And that's just staying within
base-10.

Other systems don't defy any rules of mathematics.  They just simply use
different character sets and wrap around to a column at different intervals.
They also make working with some kinds of numbers more convenient to do
quickly, in the same fashion that our common-use system makes it
particularly easy to do math with numbers with a multiple of 10.

Add 20 + 60 + 200 + 3 in your head inless then 5 seconds, then attempt the
same with 32 + 16 + 196 + 2.

If you can do both, congratulations.  But which was easier?  How many
fingers do you have?  And how many different states are recognized by an
electronic switch?

Anyway, the real quantities (which is your concern) aren't changed one bit.
The method is.  The end result translated back into base-10 is exactly the
same thing so there's nothing to get worried about.


And no reason to claim that anyone is insane. :)

Maybe when that was originally stated, it was to squirm around mathematical
question.  Which may be annoying, but that doesn't make it untrue.  Take it
in stride, and adjust your argument to account for it.  Tell them to
translate your common-system digits into base-3 or whatever, do the math,
then translate it back to base-10.  Case closed.  Do something besides use
it as an object of ridicule, that only holds up while it remains out of
context.

You can find plenty of objects for that which hold up in-context anyway.
Right?





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